Prepare your website for 2023

It's that time again, the new year is getting closer and closer and you are heading for the busiest weeks of the Christmas season with your online store? Or are you slowly preparing for the winter vacations with your company? It is advisable to plan and consider a number of things during this time. So that you can start the new year off right! Let's take a look at some of the items you can include in an annual report. And some tips that you can use in the coming year.

Things that should be in your diary.

In most cases, you won't have a website for a year; maybe this is the year you created your travel blog, launched your web store, put together a portfolio for your freelance jobs, or finally built your corporate website. Creating websites themselves can take as much time as you want, but creating the content of a website often takes longer. And it's a process that often takes years to create a website. Whether it's content in the form of more products for a web store, services for a business, or articles and posts for your blog.

In 2023, there will also be the necessary Google search updates again, and so next year will once again be about following Google's guidelines as closely as possible. So stay abreast of developments in this area and try to be flexible in this regard.

Move to Google Analytics 4

In 2023, Google Universal Analytics will no longer be supported, so it will be necessary to move to the new or latest version Google Analytics 4. It is better to make this switch as soon as possible if you have not already done so. This is to build up as much history as possible already in the new project. If you wait until the last moment, you may lose data from your website. So plan this for yourself now to implement it immediately in the new year. Or switch to another method if you don't want to start with Google Analytics 4.

Create an annual report

You can write an annual report each year to document your progress. For example, with an annual report, you can track the total number of page views, sources of traffic, and other important numbers like your total revenue. If you keep track of this annually, you can track the next year whether that amount has increased or decreased. And get an overall view, rather than just a monthly view.

Look at last year's content strategy

Content on a website will always come first. Content can take a variety of forms depending on the website, such as blog posts, landing pages, and products regularly posted to a web store. If you didn't make much progress in this area last year, it's a good resolution to put this at the top of your list for 2023. After all, with the right content, you can do a lot not only for the user experience, but also for your search engine ranking. This could make you less dependent on advertising on different channels.

Check your website's pain points and growth points.

Every website and business has its points that perform best and its products, pages or services that don't perform as well. So look at your results in your annual website hosting report to see what those are. And for example, try to develop more content and run ads for an item that is performing less well. By upgrading your underperforming products or perhaps touting forgotten services, you can significantly increase sales from your existing customer portfolio.

So put this on the action list for your website as well, it can also be further away from your customers and sales. And, for example, point more to the update of a particular technical component. Or add information that is still missing.

Is the website fully updated and secured?

Before you start the new year, make sure you have a full backup of your website before you update the entire site. If you don't already automatically backup your website and database, you can easily set this up through the Scheduled Tasks control panel. Once you have this set up, you don't need to do anything else manually. We only recommend that you check and update the data on a monthly basis. Too many backup files can take up unnecessary storage space.

You might also consider updating your website in the new year with a new theme or look. With WordPress and other content management systems, this is a simple task. However, it often involves a bit more work. So always do your homework and be prepared with a full backup. Then you can always go back if something goes wrong.

Are you ready for 2023? What's on your agenda in the new year? Let us know!